The ASPO Manager asked Wilmot N. Hess, MSC Director of Science and Applications, to devise a crew fit and functional check of lunar handtools before the LM-5 crew training tests.

Functional check of the handtools, as well as the Early Apollo Science Experiments Package (EASEP), had been agreed on at a November 26 review. Actual flight hardware would be used by the crewmen to verify operation of tools and experiments. Flight handtools - as well as the EASEP, if available - would also be subjected to thermal vacuum tests in the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory, preferably during LM-5 crew training in the facility.